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Better and worse ways to spot a liar

bbc.com

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Re: Better and worse ways to spot a liar

#31

Post by kaoD »

rogeryu wrote: post #23
benihana wrote: post #16

> Ironically, liars turn out to be better lie detectors. What is ironic about that? If I understand how to lie to other humans, why is it anything but expected that I would be able to recognize that skill in other people?

If you as a liar are good at detecting liars, then wouldn't it be logical that you could detect honesty as well, being the opposite? Well then take the opposite. What about honest people, do they recognize honest people better? I don't know, just asking, wondering. It could even be that honest people recognize honesty better than liars, while at the same time liars are better lie detectors. Then there has to be a mid…

The difference: lies pretend to sound honest, while honesty doesn't pretend to sound like lies.

Re: Better and worse ways to spot a liar

#32

Post by piokoch »

"Thomas Ormerod’s team of security officers faced a seemingly impossible task. At airports across Europe, they were asked to interview passengers on their history and travel plans"

It is so sad that nowdays it is not seen as absurdal that some kind of policeman is asking passangers about their travel plans. The journalist get excited that new methods of catching "cheating passangers" are beind developed.

Apparently in the brave new World we have created this is considered normal.

Re: Better and worse ways to spot a liar

#33

Post by zhte415 »

samuellb wrote: post #19

Not sure if trying to "trap" the liar is always the right way to go. Once I had to work with a freelance web master and we were trying to cancel his contract and make him transfer the domain name to us (an association I was working for). I confronted him by asking politely for a written copy of his contract because I thought he was lying about the length of the contract. He was insulted and claimed there was a verbal…

Great example.

Perhaps questioning him too and him feeling he was being pushed too far broke his implicit sense of trust, feeling loss of favourability.

It may have been a verbal agreement. It may have been his interpretation / perception of a verbal agreement (warped by assumptions, or by time), or it may have been a lie. Hard to tell.

A nice simple example that I'll remember, thanks.

Re: Better and worse ways to spot a liar

#36

Post by mavhc »

rwmj wrote: post #26
TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that's from 11 years ago. The actual paper was linked lower down: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10180932

I'm talking about the "study, just 50 out of 20,000 people managed to make a correct judgement with more than 80% accuracy" which was asked by the grandparent post, not the paper by the people interviewed in the article.

When will journalists reach the high standards of wikipedia and link to their sources?

Re: Better and worse ways to spot a liar

#37

Post by IshKebab »

samuellb wrote: post #19

Not sure if trying to "trap" the liar is always the right way to go. Once I had to work with a freelance web master and we were trying to cancel his contract and make him transfer the domain name to us (an association I was working for). I confronted him by asking politely for a written copy of his contract because I thought he was lying about the length of the contract. He was insulted and claimed there was a verbal…

But that's a different goal - you worked out he was a liar easily.

If you want to get someone to do something then yes you have to use different techniques (allow them to save face etc.).

Re: Better and worse ways to spot a liar

#38

Post by JonnieCache »

piokoch wrote: post #32

"Thomas Ormerod’s team of security officers faced a seemingly impossible task. At airports across Europe, they were asked to interview passengers on their history and travel plans" It is so sad that nowdays it is not seen as absurdal that some kind of policeman is asking passangers about their travel plans. The journalist get excited that new methods of catching "cheating passangers" are beind developed. Apparently i…

Have border guards not always asked those questions? I'm pretty sure it's been like that since before the 20th century.

Re: Better and worse ways to spot a liar

#39

Post by dalore »

j_s wrote: post #34

In the 3-season TV show Lie to Me (IMDB: 8.0), the protagonist relies on "micro-expressions" to catch criminals. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lie_to_Me

Great show. But the article does mention micro-expressions:

> Even if we think we have a poker face, we might still give away tiny flickers of movement known as “micro-expressions” that might give the game away.

but then goes on to say: > ... this too seems to have been disproved.

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